


The Hanged Man

by roelani



Category: Supernatural
Genre: AU, Cops and robbers whee, M/M, Some very vague Sam/Jess, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-06-17
Updated: 2012-07-01
Packaged: 2017-11-07 23:40:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 15,650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/436713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roelani/pseuds/roelani
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean Winchester is a federal agent working what seems to be a straight-up case of murder when he realizes the man they have in custody might not be exactly all he seems to be.</p>
<p>AU wherein Cas is a BAMF, heavily inspired by all of Misha's little cameo stunts on CSI and NCIS.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have absolutely no excuse for this and only a very dim idea of which way I want it to play out. It's a little brainfart of an idea which wouldn't let go of me.

When Bobby drops the file folder onto Dean’s desk, he figures he’s in for another run of the mill case, and he’s half tempted to finally crack and ask for a few weeks’ leave. He’s tired; his last three investigations have gone down the shitter faster than he can write his reports and he’s not sure he wants to face another spectacular bust.

It’s not that the cases have been bad. Mostly he’s just been having bad luck, but he can’t help but feel that he’s been a little more off his game than he probably would’ve been if things with his brother Sam weren’t so completely fucked up.

He glances up at his superior—Bobby’s a good man, if a little gruff at times—but all he gets is a stern look. 

“This is important, Dean. You’re still the best agent we got, so I don’t care if you think your life sucks balls right now. Get your head out of your ass and get to work, boy. Your suspect’s ass is sitting in I.R. three right now and I want yours sitting on the chair opposite him as soon as you’ve read through this, clear?”

“Crystal, boss,” Dean answers. He picks up the file, wondering if this is Singer’s way of getting him back into the game gently. Bobby never does things the subtle way, but he thinks he sees a concerned look cross the older agent’s face just before the man turns on his heel and shuffles back out of his office.

It’s a simple case; triple homicide, rumours of mob involvement, half a dozen witnesses going down on record saying there was a Russian man hanging around the bar looking mightily suspicious to a group of mild-mannered americans a couple minutes before the third body was discovered. It’s probably not even mob-related; the big families aren’t stupid enough to send someone so easily recognizable as one of their own to do their dirty work these days. It just makes Dean’s job all that much harder.

Four hours later he’s read through the entire file and he’s a bit surprised to note that this was Jo’s case first and that she’s asked Bobby to take it out of her hands. Strange. Jo’s usually all gung-ho about these stories; she likes—more like obsesses over, but Dean’s not one to pass judgement on what gets any of his co-workers’ kinks on—these most of all, the ones where you really feel freaking awesome about putting some disgusting, low-ball murderous bastard behind bars.

So he detours by Jo’s office on the way to the interrogation room. She’s sitting at her desk, pushing papers around a bit dejectedly. 

“Hey, gorgeous. You’ll never guess what a little bird just dumped on my desk,” he greets, leaning against the doorframe and grinning at her. 

Jo’s pretty—a bit too pretty to be taken seriously around here, sadly—and when she smiles back Dean feels a bit like his old self. They’ve never really dated—office guidelines and Dean’s own very clear rules—but he can’t say he hasn’t seriously entertained the thought.

She pushes a lock of wavy blond hair behind her ear and snorts. “Don’t let the boss hear you call him that; he’ll tear you a new one. But yeah, I didn’t feel this one, it reeks. Sorry, Dean. I guess Bobby figured you could use some action.”

“Don’t worry about it. He’s right, anyway. I’m bored out of my skull,” he answers with a shrug. “Got a hunch I should know about?”

He sees her freeze; it lasts only a fraction of a second but he knows it means she’s really shaken about this one, which is unusual. “I don’t know. It just feels all wrong. Sometimes they do, you know? And the guy we caught is like… He gives me the creeps,” she admits, dropping her eyes back onto her desk. 

Dean raises an eyebrow. “He gives you the—… Okay, I’ve seen you take down bigger men than me with just a stern look and a threat. What’s up, Harvelle?” Jo’s a tough cookie, and Dean’s starting to wonder if there really is something off about this case. He hasn’t noticed anything too weird about the file yet, but he’s been wrong before.

Jo snorts again, fixes him with a look that Dean interprets as ‘I know something you don’t’. “Trust me, you’ll find out. I’ll buy you a beer later tonight if you get out of that little meeting,” she jerks her head towards the interrogation room, “without feeling all out of sorts.”

Dean laughs at that; whatever bad vibe Jo’s getting can be safely dismissed until he gets his own feet wet, and a couple hours at the local bar with pretty female company seems a good enough trade-off for the moment. “You got yourself a deal, sister.” He winks at her, the flirting almost second nature by now even though he knows they’re never going to take this any further. “But I’m warning you, I’m not gonna have just one if you’re paying.”

“Yeah, yeah. Get your ass in there, you big alpha male, before Singer trundles in here to holler himself breathless because you’re slacking off.” She shoos him with a cute little wave of her hand that makes Dean grin even more.

His good mood evaporates pretty quickly, though. Because it’s been three months and a few crumbs since the last time he closed the deal on a case and he suddenly doesn’t want to fuck this one up. There’s already a man sitting in the interrogation room when he approaches it. The walls are all glass, the lighting neon and unforgiving, and there’s half a dozen cameras trained on the guy’s face, which is reflected in several angles on monitors in Ash’s office. 

Ash, who is sitting behind the slew of monitors, doesn’t even look up to acknowledge Dean. “Ice cold mofo we got here, Dean-o. Jo tried to crack this nut earlier and got shit-all for her troubles. I’d say good luck but you won’t give a shit,” he drawls. He’s munching on something that might once have been cold pizza, and Dean wrinkles his nose because it looks about ready to crawl out of his hand and slither across the floor.

Dean’s eyes are drawn to the monitors. The man who’s sitting in the room beyond, oblivious of them both because of the one-way glass, seems pretty average. He’s got unkempt black hair and a sort of tired-looking face, scruffy in a way that suggests it’s been days since he’s shaved properly. There are deep, dark circles under the man’s eyes which, even under fluorescent light and faded by the cameras, are shockingly bright blue.

And he’s just sitting there, both elbows resting on the cool surface of the table, staring into space like he could keep it up for hours. He’s not fidgeting, not twitching, not even glancing around, just sitting calmly and waiting. Dean’s already frowning.

“Oh, we’ve got ourselves a badass over here, haven’t we?” he grumbles, straightening up and away from the monitors. “Keep a close eye on this one, Ash. I want to know if he so much as twitches when we talk.”

“Always, boss,” Ash answers distractedly, adjusting the zoom levels on one of the cameras until the monitor is pretty much filled with lifeless blue eyes.

Dean doesn’t remember ever seeing eyes like that on someone who wasn’t ice cold and stiff and lying under a tarp. When he finally pushes the door open and marches into the room, he’s not sure what he’s expecting.

What he does get is that the man looks up, a careful, measured movement, and fixes him with a look Dean swears is digging into his brain, ruffling everything around and pulling shit out for him to examine. He stiffens almost immediately.

“Hello,” the man intones in a listless, gravelly voice, his breath hitching heavily on the ‘h’, the word distorted by a thick Russian accent. “What happened to girl from before?”

“None of your business, friend. Don’t ask any questions and you won’t be disappointed when I don’t answer them.” Dean pulls up a chair opposite the man and sits, slapping the file folder onto the table. He pauses, rehashing what he knows of the case.

This man is called Castiel Novak, and he’s the suspicious stranger that six witnesses have placed at the scene of the murder. It’s an alias, and a well-crafted one, complete with social security number, fake ID, fake history and fake life, though nobody is quite sure why anyone would go through the trouble of doing this with a name that clearly doesn’t fit a man who’s so hopelessly foreign. His real name is possibly Dmitri Krushnic, though the trail there is pretty much a dead end. Krushnic exists, but that’s all they’ve managed to dig up so far.

The name on every single piece of ID they found on the man was Novak, so Dean decides to go with that for the time being. He’s not sure he wants to clue the guy in that his identity’s been compromised. 

“So, mister Novak,” he says, opening the file and ruffling through it quickly. He pulls out two photographs of the girl’s body—it was a gruesome murder, but everything about it just screamed professional hit—and slowly slides them closer to Novak, who barely even bats an eyelid as he glances down at them briefly. “We’ve got six witnesses telling us you acted mighty suspicious and disappeared mere minutes before the owner of the bar found this,” Dean points at the photographs, his finger landing squarely on the girl’s mutilated throat, “just lying there like a bad surprise. We’re dating the body at eighteen hours at this point, which puts the time of death at just a little after 9 p.m., which is, coincidentally, exactly an hour after you arrived at the bar and just a couple minutes after you disappeared.”

Dean leans back, tries to see anything in those blank eyes and frowns, flipping the file folder shut. “Care to explain all this? ‘Cause I got two other bodies over the past few months, mister Novak, and they were both killed by some bastard with a knife and a thing for throats,” he adds, putting on his best, most pissed off and threatening bad cop face.

Novak only shrugs, and nothing in either his face or his voice has changed. “Like I already told blond girl, I only went for toilets. They were awful; you americans have funny idea of hygiene.”

And that’s all Dean’s getting, apparently, because this is the first time his pissed-off face hasn’t gotten him at least a twitch of an eye. He’s either dealing with a really dim poor bastard who doesn’t know or understand what sort of sentence he could be facing if he doesn’t cooperate properly, or, like Ash said, a real ice-cold motherfucker. Dean’s not sure which option is worse. 

“Listen, pal,” he growls, slamming both hands on the table just a couple inches from Novak’s loosely-clasped fists, “I don’t think you realize just how deep in the shit you are. I don’t care if you’re from fucking Kazakhstan, or Moscow, or Miami, but someone just slashed a barmaid’s throat right here in fucking Kansas, you’re on my turf, witnesses have placed you smack dab in the middle of all this shit and you’re going to answer my damn questions properly.”

The man shrugs, the movement slow and totally unconcerned, and Dean finally gets a reaction. It isn’t much, just the faintest quirk of Novak’s lips, and Dean’s not certain he’s not imagining it because it’s gone before he can even blink. But Ash will have seen it, and Dean silently cheers. 

‘Got you, you little shit,’ he thinks even as Novak replies in his careful drone.

“I am answering questions. I have been answering questions all day. It is not fault of mine if answers are not the ones you like, mister…” There’s a pause, Novak’s eyes flickering down to Dean’s clipped-on badge. “Winchester,” he finishes, and Dean could almost swear there’s something like laughter dancing in those weird blue eyes now. The look’s gone as soon as he notices it though, leaving him feeling a bit uncertain that he’s not starting to imagine things.

He sneers, edges away from the man and picks up the two photographs again. “You know what? I don’t care either way, pal; you’re not getting out of our sight if you’re not cooperating. We can’t throw you in jail, but I’m sure we can arrange for a cozy little motel right around the block, complete with an agent tailing your ass until you feel ready to play ball.” He starts to slip the photographs back into the file and stops himself, flashing them right in front of the man’s face.

He gets no reaction. “You see her face in your nightmares, Novak?” Dean asks, even though he’s starting to think he already knows the answer.

“I do not have nightmares, mister Winchester.”


	2. Chapter 2

Dean finds himself that night paying for drinks at their usual joint, sitting slumped in a somewhat crusty padded chair and nursing the same beer he ordered when he first got in. Jo’s face is nothing short of radiantly smug as she sips at a stupidly expensive glass of subpar white wine that probably tastes like sweetened vomit.

“Dean. Dean, Dean, Dean. You never listen to me. I told you, didn’t I?” 

He can only roll his eyes. “Yeah, you did. Didn’t expect the bastard to be dumb enough not to cooperate is all.”

The bar around them is packed, and though Dean doesn’t exactly want or care to rehash state business in public, it feels good to unload. He has exactly one friend outside of the force—if he can call whatever twisted relationship he still has with Lisa a sort of friendship—and she doesn’t like to hear him drone on about his cases too much. He tries not to visit too often, mostly because Ben and her generally remind him that he’s got his head way too far up his career’s ass to function properly out in the ‘normal’ world.

Jo, predictably, sees right through his half-assed excuse for why he’s here and running up a tab. “So you mean he didn’t freak you out a bit? I’ll be honest, Dean, I’ve seen my fair share of assholes pass through that room and I didn’t like this one at all.” She’s frowning when she takes another sip of her wine now, and Dean’s pretty sure it has nothing to do with how cheap it tastes.

He manages a small smile, leaning across the table to playfully mock-punch her in the shoulder. “Aw, come on. Big bad Russian man scare a strong girl like you, Joanna Beth?”

“Stop it, you idiot.” She bats his hand away. “I’m not scared, I just know a shitty case when I see one. And trust me, this one has shitty written all over it. It’s not mob, from what I can tell. But it still stinks, and I didn’t want it.”

Jo doesn’t mention the fact that they currently have three middle-class female citizens all laid out as potential victims in relation to whoever the hell they’d had sitting in the interrogation room and Dean doesn’t bring it up either. He’s not dumb, and he can’t really blame Jo for passing on this one.

“I’m messing with you, sweetheart,” he drawls instead, and the evening would probably have puttered out in that awkward space of will-we-won’t-we he sometimes gets going with Jo if his phone hadn’t started blaring in his jacket pocket. It’s the ringtone he has assigned to all his work colleagues, so he sighs, sends Jo an apologetic look and takes the call.

Truth be told, he would’ve picked up even if it had been Sam calling.

But it’s Gordon who greets him. “We got a problem, Dean. Your Russian John Doe just flew the coop. I had two guys tailing him back to the motel after we dropped him there all nice and official-like. I don’t know how he did it, but he just went off the radar without anybody noticing.”

Dean hisses a breath in through his teeth and Jo perks up, tilting her head curiously. “Any agents dead?” he asks, and it’s awkward because he has to keep his voice low in the crowded bar. He’s not sure Gordon heard him, because there’s an uncertain, tense pause.

“No. Just… shaken up a bit. They’re pissed, man. Both of them swear up and down they didn’t let the guy out of their sights. I have no idea how this happened, but you just lost your prime suspect in this possible triple-homicide.”

“Fuck.” 

It’s not even close to how Dean feels about the situation, but since he’s been drinking and it’s nearly 1AM, it’s all he can manage right now. “Your Russian freak just bolted,” he tells Jo. 

The look on her face, he guesses, is a pretty good approximation of his own. This is just getting better and better.

* * *

When he finally turns in for the night after a quick peck on Jo’s cheek, Dean’s exhausted. After Gordon called, he rang the station up and tried to gather more info on just what had happened. Halfway through the second relating of ‘We didn’t notice anything wrong until we busted the door of the motel room in and the guy wasn’t there anymore’, Dean just gave up and decided this could wait until morning.

It really can’t, but half his unit is already up in arms back at HQ trying to find the guy so he figures they’ll call him if anything important comes up. It feels like giving up to drive back to his apartment, and Dean decides that he’s going to change, try to sleep for approximately one minute and head back down to the bureau to maybe try and see if he can’t offer up any headspace. 

He jogs up the stairs to his door and unlocks it, stepping in with a frustrated sigh. His bad mood dissolves into uncertainty when he waltzes in further though, because his senses are blaring that there’s something wrong. He turns in the darkness and surveys the dim contours of his living room, one hand hovering near to his coat, where he keeps his gun in a neat, small shoulder holster. 

Nothing seems misplaced or appears to have been moved. The couch is still a barely-seen mess, a dark stain of old leather in the gloom. There’s no hint that anything on the shelves has been touched, nothing seems to be missing. Heck, the TV guide is still open and lying exactly where he’d left it last night, but the uneasy feeling doesn’t let up and Dean closes the door behind him, stepping towards the couch just as his nose picks up something.

It’s the scent of cigarette smoke, and it has no business being here because he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t know anybody who does and his landlady is a serious stickler for her damn rulebook. 

By the time he’s twisting around, it’s too late to do much except try to duck. A fist comes swinging at him from the darkness—freaking closet, and how much of a newbie mistake is that?—and hits him hard, straight on the jaw. He has about a second to wonder how anyone could be stupid enough to try to knock him out by going for bone before the pain registers and he realizes that the bastard who just slugged him hadn’t been going at it with bare knuckles.

Dean crumples to the floor, his head ringing painfully, and tries to roll onto his side, to get his hands and feet under him so he can reach his damned gun. A foot connects with his stomach and he grunts, bites back a sharp curse and stays down. 

A moment later there’s a weight settling on his stomach and a hand shoving his head backwards. He sees a spark of pale blue just as he feels the twinge of a needle sliding into his neck. “Oh, you fucker! You’re as good as dead,” he hisses out, the words falling mangled from his lips because dammit, his jaw is throbbing like a bitch.

The prick of steel against his throat disappears and sharp, hot pain follows it. Dean tries to land a hit on his attacker but the bastard is fast, faster than he’d anticipated, and his closed fist only meets empty air. “What the hell’d you give me?” he grumbles as the weight over his chest disappears. His vision’s already wavering but he thinks he sees the man—it’s the same guy from earlier, has to be—bending to rummage into his closet. 

Castiel Novak, the guy Jo was sure was bad news, turns back and walks towards him, holding an oxygen mask in one hand and a gun in the other. 

“You’ll find out soon enough,” he says, and Dean could almost kick himself if he wasn’t already feeling like his limbs are made of lead, because when the other man finally speaks there’s absolutely no trace of the Russian accent anymore.

The bastard stops just out of his reach and crouches, hands hanging loosely between his legs, head tilted at a curious angle. There’s a goddamned smile lurking on those lips, and it’s the last thing Dean sees before the numb, buzzing darkness takes his sight from him and he passes out.


	3. Chapter 3

A couple weeks before what Dean will forever refer to as 'the bad months', their dad had taken him and Sammy to a carnival in town, one of those ‘here today gone at the ass-crack of dawn tomorrow’ sort of gypsy fairs. It had been before Sam had decided that he was sick and tired of the moving around and the friends left behind and the constant changing schools and they'd both still been awesome together.

He vividly remembers ruffling his brother's hair before they went up in the largest roller coaster the fair had managed to put up. 

It wasn't much, because Dean learned later, as they lingered there in the dark next to their dad's car, that all that mechanical stuff had to be dismantled and packed into trucks, but it was still the highest, fastest-moving thing that Dean had ever been in at the time.

It's also the one time he almost heaved up something like seven hotdogs in public instead of in the privacy of his bathroom, clutching the porcelain bowl after a few too many drinks. It's the day that Dean discovered that he and his stomach can have a definitely fragile relationship at times and it's relevant because, right now, his stomach feels like it wants to murder him.

There's harsh light pricking at the corner of his eyes, something that pulls and grates painfully around his wrists and a really annoyingly warm weight settled against his gut and hips. All of that pales dramatically in comparison to the violent churning that wants to claw its way out of his throat.

It's the drugs, he realizes with a start, even as memory returns in a blinding flash of shame. He opens bleary eyes warily and, sure enough, the smarmy non-Russian is sitting on him, again, looking altogether way too pleased with himself.

A quick glance around confirms that, yes, Dean's currently lying—well, ain't this nice, Mystery Man thought it best to make off with his shirt, too—half-naked on his own bed, with his wrists stretched upwards and shackled to his own bedpost.

"Good morning, Dean," comes the gruff voice, still completely free of any accent.

He'd be mortified if he weren't so damned close to throwing up.

"You son of a bitch, you're a right little actor, ain't you? I swear to God, when I get my hands on you, you're gonna rot, you little shit. For as long as I can manage, and not in one of them fancy pleasant jails, either. And what the hell--" Dean has to stop and breathe, because his wild bucking has actually made him even more queasy. "Where the hell is my shirt?"

He fixes the guy with what he hopes is a straight-up, fearless glare, but he can't exactly help the flinch when a long, thin blade presses delicately against his lips. 

Novak's own lips twitch, and Dean curses himself again for ever thinking this guy was blank. It's all micro-expressions, sure, but if he'd maybe gone with his gut in that interrogation room and dug a little harder before fleeing for the nearest bar then maybe he wouldn't be in this mess.

"My mother was actually a rather nice person, yes, I like to think I'm quite good at what I do, don't blaspheme, please, and you in fact vomited all over your shirt so I thought it best to take it off of you before you rolled in your own filth,” the man intones, one long sentence full of barely-disguised amusement. The smile widens, just fractionally.

"As for why I'm here, I'm sure you've got entirely the wrong idea," Novak continues, his hand unerringly steady as he holds the delicate blade unmoving against Dean's lips for a second longer, probably to prove a point.

Dean's got no idea what that could be, honestly, because his brain's running circles around itself trying to figure out a way to get out of this one without his throat slashed open.

"I have... business to do, in town." Novak leans closer, a lot closer, bending forward until they're practically inches apart and Dean's hyperactive brain short-circuits because there is no way in hell any part of him could possibly be enjoying the spike and shiver of adrenaline that just travelled and shocked its way in a zip-line down his spine.

Novak shifts again, reaches down and slips his switchblade closed before pocketing it slowly. 

For a second there Dean hadn't been certain what would happen but this makes a lot more sense.

"And seeing as I figured you to be the stubborn type, I decided to let you have a little forced holiday while I finish what I came here to do."

The bastard actually has the nerve to pat Dean's cheek as he gets up, and Dean has to fight another short wave of nausea when the bed shifts and dips alarmingly with the other man's movement. He turns a glare towards Novak as soon as he can though and tries, with an annoyingly feeble jerk upwards, to free his arms.

"If you kill another girl, Novak, I swear I'll hang you myse--"

An exasperated sigh cuts him off and Novak turns to him before bending to pick up a sleek black duffel bag Dean hadn't noticed. "Novak is not a name I particularly like, Dean, so I'd prefer if you just stuck to either Castiel or my alias which I'm certain you know about. Besides, I know you have a brain behind that pretty face of yours, so if you could stop flinging insults my way and start using it, I'd be very grateful."

He turns again, shoulders the bag and walks off towards Dean's front door. "I won't be gone long, so stay put, please."

And that's that. The front door clicks open and swings gently closed, a familiar, slightly creaky noise that Dean hears every morning and every night, and the guy is out. Dean's head falls back onto the bed, the words ‘pretty face’ spinning luridly in his muddled mind.

"Son of a bitch," he mutters, just for the hell of it and because it feels good to actually say it, in the face of all that's happening right now.

If he weren't still half-convinced that this wasn't going to end with him in a body bag and Bobby shaking his head sadly as they zipped him up, Dean would actually find the situation many things except for terrifying. Funny, for one, because Goddamn he really did just get the dressing down of his life from a tiny fake-Russian man and he was too dazed to even fight back.

And sort of hot, as well, in a kinky, chains-and-leather porn flick sort of vibe.

Best not to dwell too much on that, though, Dean figures. 

He takes a few calming breaths and looks around his room properly for the first time since he woke. His cellphone's lying in plain sight on the small table next to the TV, about twelve feet away from the foot of the bed, completely unreachable. 

Dean figures, as a hot pang of anger surges through him, that the score now tilts in Novak's favor by at least two points. Getting over-powered and taken completely by surprise is one thing; this entire morning is just adding insult to injury, and it's completely sick and evil, Dean thinks.

"Asshole."

The TV remote is also lying there, next to his phone. He sighs and glances down, and on his lap where Novak had been sitting as comfortable as you please is a slip of folded paper. Dean frowns, rolls his eyes and tugs helplessly against the cuffs.

It takes him the better part of an hour of contortions and cursing before he finally manages to wrestle himself into an approximate preztel shape and the slip of paper miraculously tumbles around in the sheets until it gently flaps itself open, like a really freaking annoying butterfly made of torture and hellish intentions.

He's grumbling and sweaty when he manages to twist his neck enough to read, and by the time he's done he stumbles back against the headboard and groans.

There, in neat, curving, precise script, are the words: 

_"Dean,_

_I took the liberty of informing your boss of your whereabouts and situation, seeing as I'll probably be long out of the city by the time he gets my message. I hope you enjoyed your little holiday and I left you something in your office that I hope will satisfy your curiosity._

_With any luck I'll also leave you another, much better present somewhere out there, which I trust you to be able to find on your own._

_-C_

_P.S.: You really should burn that shirt, it's rather foul._

_P.P.S.: I quite enjoyed myself last night, Dean, thank you."_

Dean figures the score is now definitely 3-0.


	4. Chapter 4

The rescue itself—if indeed it can be called that, because there was both tense relief and howling, relieved laughter when Bobby, Jo and Gordon found the note—went about as smoothly as could be, but Dean sulked his way through the next day simply because none of it made any sense.

Castiel Novak had downed him like a pro—one-two shot to the jaw and gut, brass knuckles and all—and kept him down with all the ease of someone who knew exactly how to send somebody to dreamland, even if Dean had been furiously and violently ill afterwards.

Quick-acting sedatives aren't exactly your run-of-the-mill typical crook arsenal either. And it would've been much simpler, for him to keep Dean out of his hair, to simply off him and be done with it.

Plus, he can't help but feel that the last parting shot—that little bullshit innuendo in the note which still has Jo smirking slightly every few hours—had been mostly to lighten the gravity of what could almost have happened, as though this thing hadn't almost cost Dean his life, as though he hadn't tangled with the guy who'd been going around slicing throats left and right.

It makes absolutely no sense, and Dean has spent the better part of today in Jo's office, despite Bobby's insistence that he take the day off, trying to figure out why this all smelled so wrong and rubbing his bruised wrists a bit absent-mindedly. He’s been going over the file that Novak so helpfully left him in his office; it’s a mess, honestly, part stalkerish, part half amateur-killer and part absurdly thorough. There are photographs which Dean knows aren’t from any of their teams of the tree girls that had been found here in Lawrence, along with a whole mess of others, a line of apparently pointless deaths that crosses over three state lines.

There’s also a few blurry pictures of an unnamed man. Parts of the file have clearly been omitted, bits of paper torn off in the corners, a few lines of perfectly penned text obliterated by thick dark ink and thorough scratching-outs. 

Dean’s been trying to find a reason for a suspect in a murder case to practically dump his own breadcrumb trail in a federal agent’s lap and so far the only halfway believable explanation he’s got is that maybe they had been questioning the wrong man. Which makes no sense, not if Dean thinks back to the sight of Novak, sitting on his heels and staring pensively at him as he waited for the drugs to kick in.

Jo looks up and sighs at him for the third time this afternoon. “Seriously, Dean, I get that you miss your new boyfriend and all, but can't you research in your own office?” she says, still smiling slightly at him, a little sideways smirk that Dean knows is softer than it should be.

He has no idea why, but he's pretty sure that underneath the light teasing, Jo's asking him if it's actually true and if anything happened that he wants to maybe ‘talk about’. 

Dean shudders.

“I mean, I don't get it. The guy's batshit insane, that much I can guarantee. But why call you guys up? Why even bother with all this? I could've turned around faster than he'd accounted for, or reacted differently and he would've gotten caught, with a count of triple homicide hanging over his head. Why didn't he just waste me?” he muses aloud, completely ignoring Jo's unspoken question.

“Well, maybe he's one of those really crazy ones. Like he only goes after women? Who knows, Dean. Maybe you should take this over to Pamela, see if she can't profile him?”

Dean shakes his head; that rings even worse. Pamela isn't strictly in the employ of the agency, but she often does some criminal profiling and some light psychic readings for them. Generally she helps out when they occasionally run into really crazy bastards who serial kill like most nicotine addicts chain smoke. “We've got three bodies here vaguely connected with the Russian mob, Jo, I don't think this is Pam's playground.”

“Can't hurt to try.” She shrugs and tries to get back to her own report only to be interrupted by her phone's shrill ringing. “Harvelle.”

“Jo, is that simpering idjit still in your office?” Dean can hear Bobby's gruff voice loud and clear through the tinny speaker and snorts.

“Yeah, he is. Pining after Mystery Russian Meat, I think.”

“Gimme that, Joanna Beth,” Dean hisses, making a wild swipe for the phone.

Jo chortles out a loud, strangled little girl laugh that makes something clench happily in Dean's chest, and wriggles herself nearly all the way up the backrest of her chair to hold the phone out of Dean's reach.

“Well, tell 'im to get his ass up here on the double,” they both hear Bobby continue, “‘cause I just got something from the local PD he's going to want to see.”

* * *

The file gets slammed down on Bobby’s desk the very second Dean enters his superior’s office. It’s thin and currently closed, but Dean takes it for the invitation it so obviously is, shuts the door quietly behind him and picks it up.

Three seconds later he’s sitting down, because right there on the page, pinned up next to a faded and obviously fake ID, is a photograph of the same man that he saw in blurry, hasty focus within the file that Novak had left him. 

Obviously Bobby had recognized him as well. 

“What the hell?”

Bobby stares him down as he leafs through the thing. “You tell me, boy. Did you make friendly with some kind of rogue Christian Justice League freak? ‘Cause this guy right here was a piece of work. And we got led around the nose something fierce, because he had absolutely no ties at all with any of the criminal organizations we know about.”

“Was?” Dean asks, frowning, before he turns another page and finds himself staring at a crime scene photograph that looks like a Hollywood producer went rogue with the accessories department and the satanic chalk artistry. The vic’s chest is a mess of criss-crossing lines and designs carved in deep red that makes Dean’s eyes hurt.

“Guy was called Alastair, last name unknown. We got someone in Denver who managed to almost catch him a few weeks back and the girl survived. She IDed him positive so now I find myself with a solved murder case, which is just dandy, and some kind of freak renegade who thinks he’s a hero.”

Bobby sits heavily in his chair and sighs.

“Wow,” Dean agrees, slapping the file shut. “Well, at least now things make a little more sense. Want me to put out a call on Novak?”

He frowns when Bobby only shakes his head. “It ain’t that simple, boy.” He turns and pulls another file, this one much thicker, which he slams down over the first one. “Your Russian has a recognizable MO and apparently the guys upstairs have been keeping tabs on the guy for a while. Official order is to keep an eye out, report any possible further encounters but basically we’re supposed to let him do his thing. HQ says this guy’s been wasting the unwastable for years. He picks cases that’re generally dead ends, works his way through them without making any fuss and leaves us all a nice calling card to let us know that we screwed up and he cleaned our mess for us.”

Bobby points at the file. “There’s twelve in there, that HQ knows about or bothered to share with us grunts. He definitely ain’t on our list, Dean.”

* * *

Dean goes home that night feeling definitely torn about the whole thing. 

On the one hand, anyone who goes out, carves up a guy and leaves him trussed up like a gory Thanksgiving turkey then does it again a couple months afterwards is definitely someone he wants to put behind bars, as fast as humanly possible.

On the other hand though, he’s had time, after closing the deal on a drug bust gone wrong, to flip through Novak’s file, and what he’s read in there sort of muddles the line a bit. Bobby hadn’t been lying when he’d said the man had been cleaning up their messes; apparently this Novak freak has been systematically erasing the sort of scum that makes you want to give up your membership to the human race for years.

All of his targets—and Dean knows he should be thinking of them as victims, but it’s getting difficult—are people who have either killed or maimed or raped, often all three, repeatedly. People who, by sheer dint of either luck or insane genius, had been managing to escape justice, had been left to rampage and gleefully carve their way on their own little insane power trips, all over the country.

He has no idea where the guy gets his information or his money. No idea how he’s managed to circumvent law enforcement and escape getting caught for so long. But whatever he’s doing, however he’s doing it, Dean is ashamed to admit that it’s actually working a hell of a lot better and faster than going through all the red tape and plausible doubt and everything that makes his skin crawl when he’s got a known killer sitting pretty inside a locked room and no actual way to make a conviction stick.

It’s a really bad thought to have, he knows, but there it is nonetheless. 

He sighs when he unlocks the door to his apartment and fumbles for the light switch. The place hasn’t been disturbed, but he takes a careful sniff of the air anyway, just because he’s feeling pissed that Novak has managed to get under his skin with his mad brand of justice.

When he finally manages to get to sleep that night, it’s to a dream backdrop of crinkled blue eyes, and an amused, rough-as-gravel voice saying ‘Told you you had a brain behind that pretty face, Dean’.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Right, I felt I needed to drop a little note here. 
> 
> I have no idea what's going on with the writing style on this one; I'm usually a lot more long-winded with the descriptions and spend a lot more time with multiple POVs but this story just seems to want to come out this way, so I've stopped fighting it.
> 
> Hope you guys still like it~

It's not even three and a half weeks after Dean's little escapade with handcuffs and a freak Christian vigilante that he somehow lets Sam talk him into taking an actual break—as opposed to half a day tied up to his own bedposts, he supposes—and he drives the several long hours required to make his trundling way down to Palo Alto.

It's a grudging visit, and while Dean is always happy to see his brother, coming down here just seems to drive it home how badly Sam wanted to get away from their father.

Because of course, just moving out hadn't been enough for the younger Winchester; oh no, Sammy had to move all the way across the damned country into a freaking dorm.

It would be baffling if Dean didn't take into account just how different Sammy had turned out to be from both him and John. Dean, for his part, had been mostly okay with all the moving. It had made high school awkward a bit, but at least he'd never stayed in the same place long enough to end up in one of those weird situations where he'd have had to try and find an excuse not to settle down.

And all the moving had made it somewhat easier to meet girls, which he'd found increasingly awesome and useful as the years had ticked on, whereas Sammy had always been a bit of a nerd and making friends had been harder for him.

So he might be scowling a bit when he drives past the long row of trees and he might push the Impala a bit harder than necessary just to make the brakes squeal when he eventually parks her between two douched up japanese coupés. The bright, electric blue car on his left actually has some kind of sport skirt kit and Dean's pretty certain if he bends and peers under the chassis he's going to find a string of neon lights.

He shudders, gets out of the Impala and feels uncommonly satisfied when the door creaks reassuringly as he shuts it.

It's Jess who opens the door when he knocks and Dean feels a bit of that ever present awe—he has the same double-take reaction every time he sees her—that his dorky younger brother managed to snag a girl who is just so painfully beautiful.

"Hey, Jess," he says, offering her an apologetic little wave. It's almost assuredly not her idea for Dean to stay over this week; God only knows he gave them both enough shit at first, when Sam had just moved out.

She smiles back, shakes her head and motions him inside. "Get in, you big lug. Sam's out back on that small balcony you hate so much. Go help him; he's grilling things."

"God help us all," Dean whispers back in a mock panic, and something of the anger of the past few years dissipates somewhat. He's forced to re-evalute his usual opinion of Jess to add 'fiercely smart' and 'a damn good woman'. "It's a good thing he's got you, babe, otherwise we'd all be eating charcoal tonight."

It goes a damn sight further than that, of course, but Jess has the good graces not to make anything out of Dean's little emotionally grateful moment.

When he finally steps out on the ridiculously tiny balcony Dean's almost stunned by the equally ridiculous size of his once little brother. There's nothing small anymore about Sammy's tall bulk, and Dean gets a surprising hug the second Sam sees him.

It's pretty much just too-sharp elbows and awkwardness, but, for once, he's not inclined to bitch.

"Hey, Sammy."

* * *

Three hours later the conversation inevitably turns toward Dean's work. He's loathe to bring it up, every damn time, because half of his cases are open and he's really not supposed to discuss most of it with civilians.

They're sitting on Jess and Sammy's somewhat ratty old sofa. Well, Dean is slouching over most it, Jess has got her legs folded underneath her on the very end of the couch and Sammy has relocated his obviously too long limbs onto the floor, sitting in a mess of elbows and knees that's really rather unflattering for a future bigshot lawyer, Dean thinks.

"You know I can't, Sam. Bobby'll kill me if I go and blabber about the job," Dean says in the wake of Sam's insistent questions about recent cases.

Of course, deflection's never that easy.

"Yeah? Only Bobby actually called me and said, and I'm quoting here, you know I am, _'Boy, you get yer idjit brother to tell you what the hell sort of bullshit he brought home from work the other day. 'Cause your brother's as big an idjit as you and nobody here actually knows what happened'_. So, I'm asking," Sam shoots back, not bothering to attempt an even slightly believable imitation of Bobby's voice.

"Oh, for Christ's sake, really? Nothing happened, Sam," Dean huffs, slouching even further back into the too-soft couch cushions under his ass. "Some asshole managed to give Gordon the slip and actually broke into my apartment. Nothing happened, nobody died and everything's fine, okay?"

The reaction isn't quite as subdued and relieved as Dean might have wished, so clearly he must have miscalculated when he chose his words just now. Sam is actually staring at him like he's grown a second head and declared he would forsake red meat and beer for the rest of the foreseeable future.

Jess just looks worried in a way that Dean, for some reason, finds a bit endearing.

"Are you out of your mind?" Sam explodes. "That's it? It's not just some crook off the streets, Dean, it's one of _your_ crooks, and I'm pretty sure they don't just usually settle for hold-ups at the nearest 7-Eleven."

"Yeah, well..." Dean trails off, shrugs and motions with his near-empty bottle of beer. "Perks of the job, what can you do?"

There's a tense moment of silence, during which Jess actually gets up, snags Dean's empty beer and flees to the kitchen. Dean doesn't blame her.

"Seriously, Dean. I don't believe you, sometimes. I mean, you saw what the job did to dad, but you're still—"

"Don't, Sammy, or I swear I'm marching right back to my car and driving home tonight," Dean interrupts.

Sam raises an eyebrow. "Thirty hours?"

"If I have to."

Another pause, and Dean can almost see the gears working in Sammy's brain as his brother likely contemplates the possible benefits of trying to follow this whole thing to its inevitable conclusion where Dean storms out and they don't talk for nearly a month.

Again.

Thankfully, this time, Sam decides to shut up and lets it go.

"Fine."

"Fine," Dean repeats glumly.

It's not like it's a discussion they haven't had about half a million times before, and Dean doesn't quite know why Sam keeps insisting on having it; it always goes the same way anyway, so logic dictates there shouldn't be any point to rehashing it again and again.

Especially when they both know neither of them will ever give an inch on the subject of their dad and how they were raised.

So it's a bit strange that Dean still feels like talking at all, even after that little failed conversation.

He sighs a bit at his brother and turns away just in time to watch Jess slip back in with two bottles of beer held daintily in one outstretched hand. She wriggles them at Dean and he takes one gratefully, sending her a small smile that he hopes conveys some of the 'I'm so glad you're here to take care of my annoying, nagging little twerp of a brother' awe he currently has for her.

"Thanks sweethea—Jess," he says, and Dean can almost hear Sammy rolling his eyes at him as he reaches for his own beer.

It's Jess that playfully slaps him upside the head though. "I swear, Dean, one day you'll meet a girl who can put you back in your place good and she'll teach you some real manners."

"I have manners," he mutters, blinking in surprise at the images her words drag up in his subconscious.

A few weeks ago his brain would've gone automatically to Pamela Barnes, the resident psychic profiler—and there's a job description certain to make even the most cocksure man tremble a bit in his boots—because she has the unfortunate tendency of staring at him like Dean's hiding some monstrous and huge secret and he's pretty certain that a rather large number of very talented lovers have slipped into her bed over the years.

She's always made Dean feel somehow woefully inadequate and she should fit the portrait of 'obvious dominatrix up to teaching him some manners' down to a T.

Right now though, all he can think about is how he ended up stretched back and shackled to his own bed with a known killer draped all languid and relaxed over his hips, blue eyes staring at him in that slightly off-kilter way that made weird little chills run down his spine. A mouth that was probably made for sin leaning closer a few inches just before twitching upwards in what he's still pretty sure had been a smirk.

Sam's geek dorm is silent for a moment while the cogs turn in Dean's brain and he coughs to cover it up, snapping himself back to the present.

This time he does catch Sam rolling his eyes. "Really?"

"Hey come on, she started it," Dean protests, pointing playfully at Jess.

"Of course I did," she answers. "I don't even want to know what you were thinking about just now." There's a pause, then she grins and nods at him. "Was there a whip involved?'

"Oh my God Jess, what the hell?" Sam's face goes almost purple.

And Dean laughs, slumping back against the couch, because he had dreaded this trip something fierce but now, being here with Sam and his absurdly awesome girlfriend, he's pretty sure they're going to be alright.


	6. Chapter 6

Dean's bending down to wrestle a packet of ground beef up from the shelf when he feels it. It's not much, just that niggling, tickling feeling in the back of his head like when Sammy's glaring at him because he's made off with the remote. The supermarket is tiny, one of those excruciatingly local places, full of produce that looks so fresh it might as well be homegrown in the damn parking lot. Everything's about twice as expensive as Dean expects, but Sammy insisted he shop here for their little BBQ tonight because the meat is 'free range', whatever that means.

Dean knows one thing though; the aisle behind him is completely empty, because he would actually feel someone if someone was there. It's that cramped.

So when he turns around—partly to check, because he's always been a bit jumpy and partly to dump the packet of ground beef into his cart—he's expecting to see the other side of the aisle, where a whole shelf of unidentifiable foodstuffs had stared back at him earlier.

He's fairly sure he'd seen tofu in there, which had almost made him dismiss this entire section completely.

It's not tofu that's staring at him now. It's a pair of mocking, stupidly blue eyes that belong to one Castiel Novak, who is leaning back against the damned tofu-stand or whatever the hell it is.

Dean almost drops the ground beef he's holding, all the breath leaving him in a surprised and—let's face it, he's a bit terrified of this man—panicky gasp. 

He recuperates miraculously quickly, he thinks, mostly because he can now glimpse that gut-clenchingly annoying little smirk on the other man's full lips. It's still a goddamned micro-expression, but now that Dean has seen and recognized it, it's quite easy to spot.

"What the fuck?" he hisses, all but throwing the ground meat into his cart. It makes a loud smacking sound. "Are you freakin' stalking me?"

One of Novak's eyebrows twitches upwards, and the smirk tilts up. Dean grits his teeth.

"Don't flatter yourself, Dean. You're really not that interesting," the man answers, shrugging one slim shoulder. 

Here in Sammy's disgustingly hippy supermarket Castiel looks surprisingly normal, surprisingly well-adjusted and less like a crazy Christian renegade vigilante on a mission to off all of the FBI's Most Wanteds. 

It's not nearly as comforting as it should be, Dean feels. 

Novak's wearing a pair of perfectly normal jeans, a bit frayed at the knees, a thin tee-shirt that clings distractingly to a frame that's slimmer than Dean expected and a dark cotton jacket. It's surreal, like one of those weird dreams where reality is familiar but strangely distorted. 

Also, what he can see of the shirt under Castiel's jacket is horrendous and eye-watering, the sort of colour combination—blue, turquoise and purple—that nobody in their right minds would want to be caught dead in. Which he supposes makes some weird kind of sense, really, because this guy is definitely not of sound mind.

"So, what? You here on another one of your little 'missions from God', that it?" Dean snaps back, glancing up and down the alley uncertainly. He's got a death grip on the side of his shopping trolley, as though keeping it between himself and Novak can somehow guarantee he escapes this encounter intact.

Another almost-smile and another little shoulder lift. "Possibly. Though right now, I'm just here because I've been seeing your car around, Dean. How's Sam, by the way?"

And the bastard totally dropped Sammy's name on purpose, because his entire face suddenly lifts a bit, the smirk less micro-expression and a hell of a lot more like a grin when Dean feels all the blood rush from his head.

He's pretty sure he blanches, and he feels the metal of the trolley dig into his hands painfully as he clenches his fists hard enough to hurt. 

"You goddamn freak, don't you dare—"

Novak holds a hand up, the first real movement he's made so far. "Again, relax, Dean. I'm being perfectly civil here."

Dean blinks, and a sharp burst of ugly laughter escapes him. "Civil? Jesus, you really are—" He stops as the other man pushes away from the shelf he was leaning on.

There's still the shopping cart separating them, but that doesn't stop Castiel from leaning over it. He's shorter than Dean by a scant few inches, which means that the guy ends up stretched over the cart with his lips almost pressed to Dean's jaw when he tries to reach him. Hands curl over Dean's own death grip on the side of the cart, warm and dry and surprisingly soft.

Dean's a bit too panicked to react, and, stupidly, the only thought that flits through his mind is 'I hope nobody sees this and reports it back to Sammy, 'cause this is all just so gay and I'll never live it down'. It's a lot better than 'I'm about to be chopped into tiny pieces and dumped in the nearest river', so Dean supposes that's the silver lining.

Castiel's voice is conspiratorial when he speaks, pitched low and soft, and Dean's fairly certain the guy has to know that that dark gravel sound could probably make him a fortune selling sex by the minute on the phone.

"We're in the same business you and I, Dean. You're the last person I'm going to hurt. Besides..." There's a pause, and the hands draped over his own clench once then release him. "You're endearingly twitchy and it's really quite entertaining to watch you squirm."

When Castiel pulls away with a scrape of a stubbled jaw against Dean's chin, there's definitely a smirk lingering on his lips.

Dean frowns, but the mad gallop of his heart rate has less to do with panic and a bit more to do with how close the other man had just been. He's let the guy play him, let him get under his skin and fiddle around in there to his heart's content. Again.

"You really are an asshole, pal. And we might not be supposed to come after you, but you take one step wrong, just one, and I'm going to come down on you like the fist of an angry God, capiche?"

Dean gets absolutely no response, Castiel's face still mostly blank, though his lips are still quirked upwards and there's definitely an amused light in the guy's eyes. He debates actually shoving the trolley forwards just to watch the man flail back, but Dean's not sure starting a fight with someone he's been told is mostly off limits in a hippy supermarket's aisles would go over well with his boss.

Besides, he's theoretically on holiday.

So he grits his teeth when Castiel shrugs, a movement he only sees because he's now developing the habit of staring at the guy intently, just so he won't be caught unawares again.

And if the man hadn't answered him, Dean's fairly certain everything would have gone just smooth and peachy; he would've sneered, turned on his heel and driven back to Sammy's ridiculously small dorm flat to sulk for the rest of the evening.

Of course, that's not at all how it goes.

"Do you always over-compensate so much, Dean, or am I just lucky that I know exactly which buttons to push to make you twitch at the knees?" Castiel's voice is jeering, little more than a low rumble which Dean only hears over the sudden roar of blood in his ears because he's standing so close.

"You..."

"Ah, there we go," Castiel continues, and by now the smirk is almost wide enough to be considered a grin. On the man's usually blank face it's practically like the guy's shocking white teeth are a red flag, and Dean's heart gives a sudden, angry lurch. "I should have figured mentioning you on your knees would get a reaction out of—"

He never finishes the sentence, because Dean sends the trolley tumbling aside to wheel and crash against a nearby shelf and he's got both hands fisted in a death grip in Castiel's shirt before he even realizes the angry yowl came from his own throat. He shoves, hard, grinding Castiel's shoulders against the edge of a shelf as he steps closer.

Unfortunately, the bastard's face is still relaxed, his body lax and still as Dean sneers in his face.

"You... Stay the fuck away from me," he forces out through clenched teeth before roughly shoving the man harder against the shelves. He's gratified to hear a slight, surprised little gasp of pain escape Castiel's lips.

When he steps away Dean realizes there's a few people lingering awkwardly at the end of the aisle, staring at both them and the upturned cart; everything that had been on Sammy's shopping list is now lying in a mess of packaging and bruised fruits and vegetables a few feet away. A box of cereal apparently exploded on impact when Dean sent the trolley flying and is now littering the tiled floor with hundreds of miniature O's.

He sighs, sends Castiel one last glare and more or less flees, leaving behind the curious onlookers and one hell of a mess. He'll simply have to find another supermarket and Sam will have to eat normal, non-free range meat just like everyone else, Dean decides.

He never notices that one of the pockets of his jacket feels subtly heavier than it should.

* * *

That night it takes forever for Dean to sleep; he lies on the lumpy bed—little more than a camping cot, really—that Sam has set up in his small, cramped office and stares at the ceiling. He doesn't know why Novak gets under his skin so much. Aside from the obvious issue of him being a murdering, crazy asshole, of course. 

Strangely, he almost keeps forgetting about that, and when the guy is there, he's just so furiously annoying and irritating that Dean tends to push the photographs Bobby had shown him to the back of his mind. It should be hard to forget about that particular brand of crazy, especially when it involved a stiff with so many curly knife marks carved into his chest he'd looked like a particularly twisted art project, but somehow when they'd met again, Castiel had got on his nerves so bad that Dean hadn't remembered the actual danger part of the equation until he was sitting in his car in the parking lot.

He frowns in the darkness, scratches absently at his stomach over the thin cotton of a grey tee. There's now no way in hell he's going to manage to sleep, not after the memory of the photographs has flashed behind his eyelids. If he's being honest, he has to admit that Castiel probably dropped Sam's name on purpose earlier, because now he's suddenly feeling monstrously paranoid about the closet in the hallway.

He huffs out an angry breath, furious with himself for, once again, letting the bastard get to him, and slowly gets up. It's easy to shuffle noiselessly in the darkened apartment and make his way to the hallway, though once there he feels a bit stupid to be standing in a tee-shirt and boxers, one hand extended towards the closet, his entire body tense.

If Sam wakes up, he's never going to hear the end of this.

"Stupid," Dean mutters approximately twelve seconds later, once he's flung the closet door open and peered inside. It's empty, of course. "Freakin' losing my mind, I swear."

Of course it's empty, Dean thinks, and the clenching, churning twinge in his gut has to be some twisted sense of relief.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gur, please excuse chapter mixup if you caught it. Fixed, now.

Friday and Saturday come and go at the speed of light, which is strange because Dean has always felt that coming here sort of feels like time stands still and drags on and on and on until both he and Sammy explode under the tension. As it is, his little week-long holiday is almost over, and he has to admit that mostly it was a good week, if he forgets for a moment the weird couple of minutes in the trendy supermarket. 

It was a weird enough meeting that Dean's decided to cheat today and has driven all the way across town to find some apple pie that looks even half as good as the one that Sammy had brought back a few days ago. He has a twelve-pack of beer on the backseat and a bottle of white wine for Jess, the still steaming pie resting under his careful supervision on the front seat, and mostly he's in a good mood when he parks the car in front of Sammy's dorm apartment.

His arms are loaded with his purchases and he's halfway up the rickety metal staircase of when he freezes and glances over the railing. The Impala is parked in her now usual spot, and the horrible japanese coupé is still at her left. But there's an unfamiliar car in the other spot, a sleek, unremarkable sedan just a few years shy of fresh, sitting in the late afternoon sun.

It's a rather sad beige colour but the interior of the car is a vomit-inducing sort of burgundy, halfway between deep reddish brown and almost purple. 

Dean's stomach makes a complicated little dance and promptly decides to hide somewhere in the vicinity of his heels. He swallows, frowns and picks his feet up, climbing the rest of the stairs two at a time.

There's no one in the small kitchen when he shuffles in from the corridor, but Dean can see where Jess has started on the salad—Sammy's idea, no doubt, Dean's happy with his steaks as-is and has no intention of ruining them with greenery—so he dumps the twelve-pack on the countertop and turns to stick the bottle of wine in the fridge.

It's when he's reaching into the twelve pack to pluck a few beers out that he hears it, a low, rumbling purr of a laugh coming from the open door that leads to the balcony. His stomach, which had tentatively come back up for air sort of gives up its lease on life entirely, because there is no way in hell Dean could ever mistake that voice for anybody else. And even though it makes absolutely no freaking sense for Castiel to have somehow ended up here, Dean just -knows- it's him. 

He's still stupidly clutching a beer in one hand, the other one hovering uncertainly near his shoulder, fingers twitching unconsciously. He's got his piece under his jacket, of course, but considering the last time he tangled with this bastard he ended up drugged and unconscious, Dean's not a hundred percent certain how to handle this one.

Especially since it now involves Sam and Jess.

He edges closer to the doorway, and though he's not sure what he'd been expecting, this sure as hell isn't it. The balcony is, as has been already mentioned, painfully tiny. There's just enough space on it for a small table and two chairs that Sam bought from IKEA—Dean knows this because apparently Sammy has a boner about Swedish furniture and he had to hear the 'got it at IKEA' speech about pretty much everything in the apartment the first time he visited—and a BBQ that's only slightly rusty and darkened with soot.

The little courtyard in the middle of the U-shaped building houses one enormous tree that just happens to have been planted right below the balcony. So, as it soon as it hits April, the entire space is closed in behind thick, rustling foliage. It makes the porch seem even smaller.

Right now, with the light shifting into burnished gold, the entire scene is nothing short of surreal. Sam is standing at the BBQ in freaking flip-flops and low riding shorts, a big, goofy grin on his expressive face. Jess is resting one slim hip against the edge of the table, leaning casually towards the man—Novak, of course, curse Dean's luck—at her side, who's seated on the small chair, all casual and lean, sharp angles relaxed into a boneless sprawl.

The bastard is wearing the same jeans as before, and a shirt so freaking atrocious—yellow, orange and purple, big, bold blotches of colour in some kind of suspiciously gay pattern that Dean is almost certain could be called paisley—that Dean knows he did it on purpose. 

Nobody could ever look menacing in goddamned multicoloured paisley. 

His face, though, is nothing short of amused. 

Dean scowls and opens and closes his mouth a few times before finally hissing out, "What the hell are you doing here?"

He sees Jess raise an uncertain eyebrow his way and then Castiel—slimy, smart little fucker—launches into an explanation, his voice markedly less late night street worker with a penchant for cigars and slightly more innocent and harmless friend with amusingly poor taste in clothes and a dubiously clear sexuality.

"I told you earlier, Dean, on the phone. I just figured I'd come visit the infamous Sam—and you, of course, Jess—before I headed back to the office to get my head chewed off by Singer," he answers with a straight face.

Dean's never heard a more convincing delivery of such a goddamn load of bullshit in his life.

So apparently Castiel has managed to convince both Sam and Jessica that they're somehow working together. The idea is both ludicrous and hits close to the truth at once, and Dean isn't sure what bothers him more; the fact that Castiel apparently managed to sneak his way into his brother's home so damned easily or the fact that Dean totally failed to see this coming. 

And he still has no idea why the guy is stalking him, which freaks him out more than he'd care to admit.

"Yeah, sure. Sorry, man. Didn't think you'd actually show," Dean chokes the lie out, not quite as smoothly as Castiel just did, but apparently well enough that Sammy doesn't even glance his way.

His brother flips a burger and laughs, in a good-natured and carefree way that Dean hasn't heard in years.

"So, yeah, Dean. I thought you were bringing beers? 'Cause Cas has been regaling us with fabulous stories about your coworkers, man. You know, those people I keep asking you about and who you refuse to discuss because it's not allowed?" Sam says, as deadpan as you please.

Dean flinches, visibly tensing in the doorway. "Why, uh, why don't you get us some beers... Cas?" The nickname almost sticks in Dean's throat, but he does manage a passable grin at the other man. "I gotta relieve Sammy at the grill before he forever ruins our meat."

And God, but Dean hopes the other man buys it, because there is no way in hell he's leaving him alone with Sammy and Jess, not even for one second more. 

Happily, Castiel only nods and gets up, stretching lazily and shooting Jess a bright, easy grin and a quick roll of his eyes, which he doesn't even attempt to hide from Dean. 

Dean, who can only stand there, looking more than a little baffled and thoroughly confused; he should've known from the get-go that the man was one of those freaky character actors, people for whom slipping masks on and off is second nature. 

"He seems nice," Jess states the second Castiel has disappeared back inside.

Dean completely ignores her and turns towards Sam, eyes widened. "Okay, look, I hate to cut this little BBQ short but you guys need to get the hell—"

"Here you go, Dean," Castiel's voice rings out behind him, close enough to tickle the back of his neck.

He absolutely does not startle forward, and no surprised gasp escapes from between his teeth, at all. Dean has no idea if the guy ran to the kitchen and back, but goddamn it, that was the quickest freaking beer run in the history of beer runs. He narrows his eyes at Castiel but accepts the beer anyway, sitting down on one of the small patio chairs when it becomes clear that Castiel isn't about to whip out a gun—or grenade, rocket launcher or even a bible, Dean has no idea anymore—and that nobody is actually going anywhere.

At least not until this little charade is over.


	8. Chapter 8

It's torture. 

Pure and unbridled, cruel, twisted punishment. 

Dean has no idea what he did to personally offend the guy, but there has to be something. Nobody is this inventive trying to make somebody squirm unless they have a vendetta or a score to settle.

They've already discussed his weird friendship with Jo, his obvious terror in the face of Pamela Barnes' advances and the time when he and Ash went out for beers and he ended up picking up a chick who sadly had not been a chick at all. Dean has no idea where Castiel has heard all of this or how he got any of these stories in the first place. 

All he knows is that he's starting to get seriously freaked out. 

He just figures that if he waits this out and doesn't do anything to cause the guy to panic or get pissed, Castiel might actually slip up and let loose a clue or two as to why he's doing this.

It takes about two hours for the wine to disappear completely and then Jess suggests shots, much to Dean's dismay. They decide to move their little party inside because it's getting chilly and Jess gets briefly busy in the kitchen before returning with something that smells like distilled oranges for herself and some JD for the boys. 

The next thing Dean knows, he's sitting on his brother's couch and there's a weird non-Russian religious nutjob on a countrywide mission of revenge and retribution more or less propped up on the back of said couch, one hip almost pressed against Dean's shoulder. Castiel is perched there like a freaking crow on top of a church steeple, one leg hooked and crossed under him while the other dangles loosely off the side of the couch.

It's particularly annoying because, this way, the guy is marginally higher up than Dean, which gives him the stupid impression that he's shorter than Castiel somehow.

Sam is telling them the same old story of how he and Jess met. It must be the fourteenth time Dean hears it by now.

"So then I walked over and I think I managed to just about choke out a 'hello' before this guy from my Criminal Law class pretty much collided into me and I ended up spilling my entire coke down Jess' shirt."

"It was white," Jess offers helpfully, grinning at Sam like he's the sun.

Sam smiles back, and Dean is about to throw a comment at them about how sickeningly sweet they are when he feels it.

There's a hand—a very dry, very warm hand—suddenly draped loosely against the back of his neck, and fingers picking their spidery, shivery way up into the short, cropped hair just above that. It's a stupidly intimate sort of caress, because Dean can feel each and every one of Castiel's fingers, first the soft pads of them and then a brief, electrifying zinging flash of blunt nails against his scalp.

He freezes completely, eyes snapping away from Sam and Jess to stare blankly straight ahead. 

His first instinct is to shove the guy away, hard. His second instinct—which he'll admit is more a simple, angry knee-jerk reaction—is to get up, pull his gun out on the guy and call Bobby, and damn his orders to stay away from this bastard.

His third thought—because at this point it's no longer instinct at all—is to not move a damned muscle and see what Castiel does. That's not at all what Dean wants to do, but he remembers vividly now the details of those damned photographs, and he also remembers the confident, easy movements of the man during those brief few seconds of scuffling in Dean's apartment, the way Castiel had simply crouched at his side, head tilted curiously, and watched Dean succumb to the drugs.

This guy has been hunting and killing for the better part of a decade, and Dean's not inclined to test how far he can push until Castiel snaps.

At least, not with Sam and Jess present.

So he doesn't move much except to turn his head slightly and shoot Castiel a glare that he hopes promises all he feels would be proper revenge for this, namely pain, pain and more pain in the very immediate future. 

Castiel just calmly inclines his head down and full out smiles, the beatific sort of smile Dean has only before seen on church paintings. It's a completely innocent smile if you ignore the way that Castiel's eyes are gleaming.

He's clearly amused as all hell that Dean has realized he can't tangle with him just now. The fucker.

Unfortunately it's when Dean rolls his eyes and Castiel's smile gets wider, with that clever hand still resting against Dean's neck, that Sam realizes he's lost his audience and turns towards them. His eyes go as wide as saucers and the story of his and Jess' first meeting peters out as Sam stutters, gapes for a few seconds and swallows noisily.

He covers it up fairly well, clearing his throat and eventually closing his gaping mouth, but Sam has never exactly been the king of subtle, so Dean is hardly surprised to hear the soft "Oh," of recognition.

"Oh," Sam repeats, as if suddenly everything makes sense. "I didn't realize..."

But Dean does realize, of course. He's going to have to play this little charade, for as long as Castiel keeps dancing to this fucked up music, because there is no way that Dean can further endanger his brother and his too-perfect girlfriend. It's part of what he hates about his job, the fear that he's going to one day bring it back home with him, take it too far and somehow get whatever's left of his broken family involved in all the unsavoury shit he has to deal with daily.

It's exactly what happened with their dad, all those years ago, when John's curiosity and stubbornness brought his then current case crashing into their private life.

It's what, ultimately, killed their father, and he has to suddenly wonder if Castiel knows about that too, knows about the day that John Winchester took three bullets in the chest trying to save his sons from the bastard who followed him home.

"Didn't realize what, Sammy?" Dean shoots back, his voice tight and strained. Castiel's goddamn fingers play a soft, soothing rhythm against his nape before moving very slowly to Dean's shoulder, giving it what must look for all the world like a reassuring squeeze.

Dean's pretty sure his shoulder must feel like steel under the guy's hand, because he's never felt more tense in his entire life. He turns to shoot Castiel another pissed-off glare and the man plays his role perfectly, sighing and looking away at Sam and Jessica with a subtly apologetic look, as if this is an argument they've had a million times before and he's sorry to have caused any sort of awkwardness or trouble.

Sam's face mirrors Castiel's instantly before he turns towards Jess, apparently deciding to drop the matter for now. He clears his throat again. "Anyway, I um... Should probably go check on the BBQ. You know, scrub the grills before they go all gummy." He nods at everyone and quickly excuses himself, all but fleeing from the room.

Jess, to Dean's everlasting horror, swiftly gets up and follows him out. 

"I'll help, there's like a ton of empties and glasses out there."

The screened balcony door closes with a soft click and Dean all but explodes off the couch. He's turning around and fisting a hand in Castiel's shirt in a mere second, and when the man doesn't even twitch to avoid him Dean whips out his gun and shoves the muzzle straight under the man's stubbled chin.

"What. The. Fuck? What the hell are you playing at?" he hisses, struggling to keep his voice low enough that neither Sam nor his girlfriend can hear them through the screen.

Castiel raises both hands in front of himself in a placating gesture, but the corners of his mouth are still twitching. "Jumpy much, Dean? I wasn't aware touching you was off-limits."

"Off-limits? OFF-LIMITS?" Dean takes a deep breath and curses, glancing at the balcony door as though his rising voice is going to bring Sammy bursting back in. "Of course it's off-limits, you freak. Being here is already off-limits, so what the hell? Whatever you think you're doing, I want it to stop. I want you," Dean says, emphasizing the words with a sharp shove of the gun under Castiel's throat, "to get the fuck out of here, walk out to your car and drive away. Right now."

The other man lets his head be pushed back a few inches, as though he's completely okay with exposing his throat to a guy who's got a gun pressed against his chin. 

"Much as I'd like to at the moment, I can't," he says, thankfully also keeping his voice low. He pins Dean with a tense, calculating blue stare. "First off, because you're practically melding me into this couch."

Dean glances down, stares at the way he's indeed almost fused to the other man, pressed chest to hip against him and hastily moves back a few inches. 

Castiel's eyes are still focused intently on his face when he looks back up. 

"And second off, because I'm actually 'working', here." He punctuates the words with ridiculous air quotes.

"Working? Working a job? One of your sick, twisted retribution gigs, is that it?" Dean deadpans. "Look, pal, I don't care what you do with your free time just as long as you do it far away from me and my fami—"

"They never caught the man who shot your father, did they?" Castiel interrupts, looking altogether too smug for a man with a gun pointed straight at his face. 

His words fall like lead weights in the pit of Dean's stomach. The man who shot his dad, the same man who'd actually broken into their home when Sammy was just a baby, the very same man who his father suspected had caused the electrical fire that had turned a simple burglary into involuntary manslaughter because their mother Mary had been in the wrong place at the very wrong time.

The one man that John had tried so hard to put behind bars and the one man that Dean had never found again after that devastating night when his father had died in his arms.

"You don't know -anything- about that," Dean breathes, staring wide-eyed at Castiel, with his big, stupid blue eyes and his crusade of sick, twisted justice. "You can't possibly—"

"I know he's the petty thief who tried to rob your family when you were a child," Castiel interrupts again, shifting against the edge of the couch. "I know he went deep into the underground after that. I know he started dealing drugs. I know which gangs he ran with, which people he screwed over, who he killed and who he kept for fun. I know about a dirty basement somewhere in Chicago where people did not die quick. I know about the string of kids he has left broken and traumatized all over twelve states." He pauses, possibly to let the words sink in.

"Should I go on?"

Slowly, almost grudgingly, Dean lets the gun drop away, though he doesn't quite let go of Castiel's shirt. "Do you know where he is now?"

Castiel shrugs, a slight movement that makes the material of his thin, horrid tee-shirt roll over his shoulders and upper arms. "Believe it or not, that's what I'm trying to find out."

Dean raises an eyebrow and almost lets out a bark of laughter at that. "By pretending, in front of my goddamned brother, that you and I are... are..."

The other man does laugh then, the same rumbling purr Dean heard earlier. "You know, for a man with such a pretty mouth, I find you're surprisingly, well, anal about your sexuality, Dean."

And Dean, still riding the cloud of terror and worry and anger, can't help but laugh. It's loud, and practically therapeutic, and he has to wonder if Castiel didn't say that on purpose, just to make him unclench.

And, wow, unpleasant mental image right there, Dean thinks.

"Fuck you, pal. And you and me, we're going to have a long talk about all this. Soon." Dean stops, shoves his gun back into its holster and sends another worried glance towards the balcony. 

The screen door is still closed, but now he realizes he's not hearing any sort of sound from outside and he can only hope that Sam didn't hear a single word of their conversation. 

"But for now," he continues, letting go of the other man's shirt and slowly stepping back. "Now we're going to say goodnight to my oblivious little brother and... God, you're going to keep your hands to yourself, clear?"

Castiel raises his hands again, though this time it's less a placating gesture and much more a joke, judging by the shit-eating grin on his full lips. "I will be a perfect gentleman, Dean. Your dubious virtue is safe with me."

Dean rolls his eyes and groans. "Additional rule; you don't get to speak anymore."

He hears a muffled snort of laughter as he turns away, and Dean knows he's fucked. The one guy who can thoroughly ruffle his feathers and get under his skin is apparently digging his heels into Dean's life, and he's offering the one thing that Dean wants more than anything, which is to get his parents' killer off the streets. 

It doesn't even have to be a journey from freedom to jail; Castiel can offer him the bastard's head on a silver platter and Dean's not sure he'll be able to play the good officer of the law if it comes to that.

Castiel, who he's already starting to hate less and less, who's surprisingly fun to tangle with, who's like a really, really dangerous drug, is probably going to be his downfall and Dean just can't seem to care.

* * *  
They stay at the apartment for another hour or so, Dean helping Jess clean up in the kitchen and Sam and Castiel sitting like two perfectly normal friends in the living room under Dean's subtle supervision. Apparently his brother has a lot of interests in common with a psychotic madman who likes to go on murdering sprees on the weekends, a little fact which freaks Dean out something fierce.

He hears bribes of quiet conversation from time to time, enthusiastic debates about the intricacies of law, discussions about literature and poetry of all things and, once or twice, a few comments on the nature of human sexuality and its various configurations.

That's when Dean interrupts, because there's no way in hell he's listening to this.

"You girls done?" he barks, drying his hands on a dishtowel and leaning against the doorjamb. Jess appears at his side, sliding a gentle hand over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry? I was under the impression that the girls were in the kitchen," Castiel deadpans, face utterly serious.

Sam nearly snorts his last swallow of beer out through his nose in his efforts to contain his laughter and Dean sends him a death glare that should make him spontaneously combust. Sadly, that doesn't happen.

"Funny guy," he mutters at Castiel. "It's late, so we should let Jess put Sammy to bed." Dean's not sure how to voice the demand that they get the hell out of there without sounding all couple-y so he furiously hopes Castiel plays along and lets them leave without too much fuss.

"Of course, Dean," Castiel answers placidly. He gets up and warmly shakes Sam's hand. "It was a pleasure meeting you both." He smiles again, the same disconcerting, too-open smile as before, and walks over to Jess to actually plant two soft kisses on both of her cheeks. 

And then the bastard turns for half a second towards Dean, his smile going from totally innocent to gut-churning devious in the blink of an eye. Dean doesn't even have time to breathe in before he continues. "It was an honour, really, Dean speaks so highly of you. All the time. Perhaps next time we're in town we can treat you both to dinner out instead?"

Jess, completely oblivious to the massive vein threatening to burst on Dean's forehead, nods and smiles back. "Of course. That'd be lovely, right Sam?"

All three heads turn towards Sam, who's grinning like a madman and staring straight at Dean. "Sure. Lovely, yeah. It'd be awesome." He nods at Castiel. "Maybe you can even convince him to pick up the phone once in a while, huh?"

Dean whips his head around towards Castiel, who pulls out the beatific smile again. "I'm sure I can find several imaginative ways to... convince him, yes." 

Sam sputters out a series of awkward laughing noises, Jess actually blushes a bit and Dean almost feels the vein on his forehead burst. He mumbles out a hasty and gruff, "See you later Sammy, Jess," and promptly flees, exiting the small apartment into cool night air and almost stumbling over his own feet as he trundles down the stairs. 

Half a minute later Castiel follows, and Dean belatedly realizes he actually left the guy up there alone with his brother and Jess in his haste to get the hell out of there. He rounds on the man the second Castiel's feet touch concrete and shoves him back a few paces. Castiel steadies himself with a hand on the railing and quirks a dark brow at him.

"You're an ass," Dean states, pointing at him with a barely trembling hand. "Do you realize what you're freakin' doing? Now my brother thinks I'm—"

"Now you and your brother are no longer at each others' throats." Castiel's habit of interrupting him is starting to grate, and Dean feels his left eye twitch. "Are you seriously telling me you're angry at me for that?"

"I'm angry at you for fucking up my life!" Dean barks back, fighting the urge to reach for the man's butt ugly shirt again. Instead he simply stands there, takes a few seconds to calm his breathing then points at the beige sedan. "Now you just get in your damn car and be on your way. I want to know the second you find anything out about the bastard who killed my parents, but in the meantime, stay out of my life, and stay away from Sam. Are we clear?"

"No."

Dean blinks. "I'm sorry?"

"No," Castiel repeats, pushing away from the railing and stepping closer until he's standing way into Dean's personal space, crystal clear eyes boring into Dean's own. He raises one hand, hooks his fingers in the neck of Dean's tee-shirt and tugs down hard, bringing them so close that Dean feels his breath against his lips as he speaks. "We are doing this my way or not at all, Dean. I'm the one with all the information whereas all you have is a burning desire to find this man who killed your parents." 

His face grows hard for a second, and in the dim light from the streetlights it looks decidedly menacing especially now that he's too close for Dean to make out the lurid pattern on his shirt. He's suddenly no longer the annoying little shit who cracked gay jokes at him all evening but the same scary fucker Dean first met in that interrogation room, the same man who took him down in his own apartment without even breaking a sweat.

"I can give you what you want, Dean, or I can just as easily throw you back into your miserable, predictable and unsatisfying routine. Are. We. Clear?" Castiel says, throwing Dean's demand right back at him.

For all that he's actually looking down a few inches because he's taller, Dean can only nod dumbly. "Fine," he finds himself saying through a parched throat. He coughs, tries again. "Fine, whatever. But if you so much as lay a hand on either Sammy or Jess—"

"I wouldn't dream of it," Castiel breathes, staying unmoving for a few short seconds before releasing Dean's collar.

Dean huffs out a grumbled agreement and moves away, shoving a hand inside his jeans' pocket to get his car keys out. He's fumbling with the lock on the driver's side door when Castiel speaks his name again. Dean sighs, glances up at the sky in exasperation and turns. "What?"

The word is cut short, Dean's breath leaving him in a surprised gasp, because the second he turns Castiel's lips are on his, hot and insistent. Dean feels them dry and soft against his own, barely registering the twin pressures of the Impala's chassis against his ass and Castiel's surprisingly sharp hipbones pressing against him. Surprise makes him part his lips on a grunt and the other man slip-slides his tongue past them and into his mouth, pulling away completely after a few devastating moments with a teasing bite down on Dean's lower lip.

Stunned, too shocked to move and with his heart beating a wild, rattling tattoo inside his ribcage, Dean sees Castiel take a step back and slide a shockingly pink tongue over the swell of his plump, glistening lower lip. 

"Thank you for a lovely evening, Dean," he rumbles around the faintest hint of a smirk.

Dean watches him turn away and get into his horrid beige sedan, and it's not until the uneven, hiccuping roll of the car's motor has died away that he realizes he's hard as rock in his jeans and he's just been kissed by a man.

"Son of a bitch," Dean hisses out, staring blankly at the electric blue japanese coupé straight in front of him. He curses again. "Fuck." It doesn't help, not even a little, and Dean's still hard and confused and out of breath when he gets into his car and drives it out of the parking spot and towards the interstate.

It's not until he pulls over in some gas station near the state line in Utah and he sticks a hand in the left pocket of his jacket that he actually finds the very small GPS device that Castiel planted on him when they had their little scuffle in Sammy's favourite supermarket. While it explains how the guy managed to find Sam's apartment so easily without Dean ever noticing anyone tailing him, it's still a goddamned blow to his professional pride.

The stunned cursing doesn't let up until he passes Denver and Dean figures now is as good a time as any to stop keeping score, because this is just getting embarrassing.


End file.
